


i'm a liability

by ecv-197 (lazyfish)



Series: i'm a liability [3]
Category: The Orville (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sedoretu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 05:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21069929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/ecv-197
Summary: Things get complicated for Ed after Talla and Kelly proposition him.





	i'm a liability

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you might be a bit lost if you read this without checking out the rest of the series first!

Ed didn’t know why Kelly was calling him into her office, which was unnerving purely because of how uncommon it was. The circumstances made it even worse - the past version of Kelly had just been sent back to the past, and Ed had a feeling he was going to get a tongue lashing about how he had treated the younger version of Kelly. He would deserve it, too. Trying to fill the empty space left behind by present Kelly’s rejection with a past version of her had been idiotic, and it had ended up hurting them both. He was lucky it hadn’t gone more wrong than it did.

When he rang the bell to Kelly’s office and was invited in, he was surprised to see it wasn’t going to be just the two of them alone in the room. Talla was sitting on Kelly’s desk, cross-legged and relaxed, like she belonged there.

Kelly didn’t waste time with a greeting. “You said getting back together wasn’t off the table. Is that still true?”

Ed gaped. “Yeah - uh, yeah.” His eyes flicked over to Talla, not entirely certain why she was present for this conversation, but she didn’t look bothered by it. The only sign she was less than composed was her fingers fiddling with her necklace.

“We have a proposition for you,” Kelly said, leaning forward and splaying her hands out on the table. “Talla?”

Talla then proceeded to explain the way things were done on Xeleya - four-way marriages that involved being involved with more than one person, but being committed to those people the same way his monogamous marriage with Kelly had been. Or, was supposed to have been. 

Maybe in the past, Ed would have dismissed it as crazy. But at the end of it all, he wasn’t opposed to it - but he wasn’t entirely in favor, either.

“And how will this fix our problem?” he asked, clearing his throat. “I mean, if a captain and his first officer being together is a liability, isn’t the captain, first officer, and security chief being together even more so?”

“We thought about that,” Talla said. “Maybe you’ll disagree, but our thinking is that we’ll be able to call each other out on being overprotective. Even if we agree that something is reckless or a bad idea or something we don’t want someone we care about to be doing… we can still say it’s a part of the job and something we have to let them do anyways.”

“And this goes for everyone. Not just you and me,” Kelly added. “Checks and balances.”

“Checks and balances,” Ed repeated. He wasn’t sure which was more insane - them coming up with the plan in the first place, or it making sense.

Ed fidgeted. This wasn’t at all what he expected when he came into Kelly’s office, and honestly… “Can I take some time to think about it?”

“Yeah, of course,” Kelly said, looking him dead in the eye. “Just don’t think too hard, okay?”

Now, what was  _ that _ supposed to mean? Ed added it to his list of things to puzzle over, bid his goodbyes, and left Kelly’s office behind.

\---

Thinking about it more didn’t make his path forward seem any more clear.

He could agree with the logic of it. It was the emotional side that was tripping him up. In theory, he didn’t have a problem with polyamory. But with his and Kelly’s history… would he really be okay with sharing her?

He was divided on the issue. One part of him was screaming that thinking of the relationship as sharing Kelly was gross and misogynistic and a whole host of other things he didn’t want to dive into. Another part, sensibly, was saying that the only way he could tell his feelings on the matter was giving it a try. Yet another part was making him doubt that second part. What if he was willing to give this a try because it was the only way to have Kelly back? She hadn’t gone so far as to say as much, but her relationship with Talla seemed to be… good. Stable, if new. Ed couldn’t see Kelly abandoning Talla to be with him, which was  _ good _ but also inconvenient because it added another layer to an already complicated situation.

He had thought it to death, which meant all there was left to do was talk to someone about it. His first instinct was to talk to Gordon, but as soon as the thought crossed his mind Ed knew it wouldn’t be a productive conversation. He would spend all his time explaining what a sedoretu was and none of it actually hashing out his problem. That meant the only two people on the ship he could talk to about his hesitation were Talla and Kelly herself.

Ed knew which one of them he  _ wanted _ to call, but he also knew talking this over with Kelly was the wrong choice. Neither of them could be anywhere near objective. 

Which meant he was left with Talla. That wasn’t bad, exactly, but Ed struggled to remember a time they had spoken to each other outside of work and small talk. He wasn’t close to her the way he had been with Alara, and hadn’t even noticed how close Talla was with Kelly. It had been a shock to him to learn they were seeing each other - though part of that was probably because he wouldn’t have wanted to see Kelly enter into a new relationship with not-him. 

At least Talla wasn’t Cassius. Ed hated that guy.

Resigned, he picked up his comm, and made the call.

\---

It felt weird to be talking about something so private in the middle of the mess hall, but there wasn’t anywhere else in the ship Ed felt comfortable meeting Talla. One of their offices would feel to sterile, and their quarters too intimate. So, the mess hall it was.

“I just don’t know if I can do this,” Ed said, swirling his drink in his glass idly. He wasn’t all that thirsty, but the glass was good to occupy his hands.

“Do you think it’ll be like a competition?” Talla asked.

“I… I don’t know.” Maybe a part of him  _ had _ thought that. He had gotten rather wound up about sharing, but was the sharing itself his problem, or the worry that Kelly would like the person he was sharing with better?

Ed knew the answer to that question. He sighed.

“It’s normal to feel jealous at first,” Talla told him. “Even on Xeleya where this is expected of most people, there’s some jealousy. It’s complicated, and we know that.” She offered him a close-lipped smile. “If you still decide you don’t want to, that’s fine. But if you’re worried about it because you think your jealousy is insurmountable, don’t be. We’ll make it work.”

“You seem awfully confident of that.”

“Captain -”

“Ed,” he corrected her. If they were going to be sleeping with the same person she’d have to learn how to use his first name.

“Ed,” Talla began again, “I hate to say this, but between you, me, and Kelly, there’s enough stubborn for a dozen starships.”

Ed cracked a smile. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

Talla’s close-lipped smile blossomed into a full-on grin. “You are.”

“Point,” Ed chuckled. “So… how does the sleeping-together thing work?”

“What do you mean?” Talla asked, sitting back in her chair. “I mean, we won’t, because we’re the same moiety, but…?”

“How does she pick?”

“Oh.” Talla laughed, and maybe Ed was imagining it, but he thought he heard a hint of nervousness in the sound. “Ideally, we’d be spending most of our time together as the three of us anyways. It might help if you stop thinking of it as her being with both of us, and started thinking of it as a mutual, three-way thing. Just one that doesn’t involve sex for us, specifically.”

Ed considered that. It did ease a little bit of the knot in his chest to think of it as a triad instead of two couples, which he thought was a step in the right direction. “What about the fourth?” He hadn’t missed the part where sedoretus were intended for four people.

“Kelly and I didn’t really talk about that. Thought we should see if you were even interested before we got ahead of ourselves.” Talla paused. “She seemed to think you’d have an idea, though.”

“Did she?” Ed was sure his eyebrows had disappeared all the way into his hairline, he was so shocked. Who the hell did Kelly think he wanted to sleep with?

“She didn’t tell me who, and I didn’t ask.” Talla shrugged.

“Huh.” Ed went back to staring down at his drink.

Silence with Talla, he discovered, was comfortable. She didn’t seem to be waiting for him to say something, which was a miracle and a half since he still hadn’t made an official decision.

He had made an unofficial one, though. Honestly, he had made the unofficial decision when he began considering this in the first place. He wouldn’t have given it nearly as much thought as he had if it wasn’t almost a sure thing.

“So what’s the next step, then?”

“If you say yes? Probably just dates. I mean, obviously you and Kelly have been on a lot of those already, but for us, too. I’d like to know more about you than second-hand stories from Kelly. And of course the three of us spending time together.”

Ed let that sink in. Dates. He hadn’t done those since Janel - Teleya. 

“We can start slow. Casual,” Talla offered.

Ed snorted. “I don’t think Kelly and I can really do casual.” A part of him felt bad for dragging Talla in as their mediator, too. But since all of this had seemed like mostly her idea - and definitely all her culture - he had to assume she was okay with it. 

“Then we’ll be whatever you want to be.”

“You seem awfully determined for this to happen,” Ed commented.

“Kelly loves you more than she says. I think she loves you more than she even realizes. And I just want her to be happy.”

“Do you love her?”

Ed looked up from his drink just in time to see Talla go stiff.

“Yeah,” she said, voice softer than it had been a moment before. “Yeah, I think I do.”

Ed had seen the look on Talla’s face before. He had seen it in the mirror, specifically. Loving Kelly Grayson wasn’t for the faint of heart - but it was oh so worth it.

He was beginning to see how this moiety thing could work. Talking to Talla didn’t feel like talking to a competitor; it felt like talking to someone who understood parts of his life he hadn’t been able to share with anyone before. 

“Okay. I’m in,” Ed said, downing the rest of his drink. “Let’s go tell Kelly.”

“I might be a little bit ahead of you,” Talla said, glancing towards the mess hall entrance. Lo and behold, there was Kelly, walking towards them.

Ed’s gaze flitted from Kelly to Talla and back again.

He had a feeling he was going to get used to being outmaneuvered. 


End file.
